A dad completed the Liverpool Half Marathon just one year on after collapsing at another race.
Richard Moore, from Southport, suffered a heart attack for one hour before he "hit the deck" and went into cardiac arrest while running the Blackpool marathon in April last year. He thought the pain was due to a stitch and tried to carry on.
Speaking to the ECHO, the now 41-year-old said: "I was aiming for under four hours, which for anyone who has ran a marathon is the milestone because if you get under four hours you probably don't have to do another one because you've accomplished it. Three hours in I thought I was just having a stitch basically.
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"The last hour I was trying to just run through the stitch and what I thought was probably the runners wall that we hit, but it turned out it was a heart attack for an hour. I just hit the deck and went straight into into a cardiac arrest.
"I flatlined for about five minutes while a lot of people were doing CPR. Luckily there was a defib in the ambulance at the finish line. They were on hand and within five minutes I was brought back."
Richard's children, Corban, nine, and Quinn, five, also witnessed their dad collapsing.
He added: "I asked [my children] to meet me at the finish line because we were going to go across the finish line together. I basically asked them to watch me collapse on the floor because I was 300, 400 metres from the finish line.
"So they witnessed me hit the deck, the school have done a little bit of counselling for them. So Sunday for me was 'daddy is going to do it this time, daddy is going to cross the finish line and we're going to make new memories of daddy running'."
The 41-year-old said after staying in hospital for five days he had to "start from scratch" getting his fitness back. He did this by walking for four minutes on a treadmill before gradually increasing.
It was after this Richard was determined to get fit again and on Sunday, March 26, the dad-of-two crossed the finish line at Liverpool's half marathon into the arms of the family.
Richard said his life was saved thanks to CPR carried out by the Knott-End coastguard team and an ambulance arriving with a defibrillator shortly afterwards. He teamed up with Naomi Williams who has been fundraising for community defibrillators to be made accessible and so far £1,580 has been raised.
Writing on the GoFundMe page, Naomi said she was able to save someone's life thanks to there being a defib on hand.
She said: "I was in the right position to help save a life and I would like to invite you to help me save another. I work in a school and on the last day of term my headteacher suffered a cardiac arrest, his condition only had a 2% survival rate. Luckily the school had a defib."
Naomi bought a £1,300 defibrillator out of her own money for the Railway Terrace in Birkdale area. The Oliver King Foundation has since donated a secure box linked to 999 so the defib can be used.
Richard and Naomi are now planning on raising more money for more defibrillators to be made accessible.
To donate to the GoFundMe page, please click here.
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